My Little Pony

Posting a photo of “My Little Pony” may seem odd but it will all make sense if you just bear with me.

I’m taking a course called “Advanced Leadership” where we learn various leadership theories how CEOs work versus other CEOs and study other great leaders — Abraham Lincoln, Steve Jobs, FDR — to try to get a glimpse at what made/makes them great leaders.

My teacher presented a scenario to us, she asked what we think of having the perfect job. What job would that be?

I’m not a cynical person but my mouth opened and before I could stop it I blurted out, “This seems like ‘My Little Pony.’ There’s no way everyone can be 100 percent happy wherever they are. It’s not possible.”

My professor then went on to tell the class about her great love for students, academia and everything she is involved in. It sounded nice but the journalist in me questioned her.

Later, we went on to look more closely into companies like Google and Zappos — these successful business give their workers perks, desire creativity and reinforce hard work.

I wanted to do a simple reader-submitted slide show and was told by every person who works over me that it was a.) a terrible idea b.) no one would submit c.) no one would care.

Despite that I asked if I could do it on my own, in between stories — the only pain they would get from it was seeing my constant posts on Facebook and in the breaking news box.

After begging, pleading and soliciting, I got multiple photos and the slide show generated more than 30,000 page views. How do you like me now?

Studying these great leaders and the methods that put the bottom of the barrel employees at the top of the pyramid rather than the big man seems like Wonderland to me.